Six ways to get social media buy-in from the boss

If you’ve been preaching about the benefits of social media and urging your superiors to jump in head first, only to find that it continues to fall on deaf ears, allow me to suggest a change in approach. Here are six ideas that may help you with your mission. Use one, or use them all. What’s important is you just keep trying!

Accentuate the negative Do a Google search and find something negative that’s been written about your organization or company. Find several. Send them in an e-mail marked urgent. Use bold type and write something eye-catching in the subject line such as “Oh my God, read this NOW” or “Look at these lies I found on the internet.”

Tout the efforts of the competition. Provide a detailed report about a competitors social media efforts. Illustrate how they are engaging the community and participating in a two-sided conversation. Be sure to send this information about an hour after the previous “Oh my God, read this NOW” email .

Recommend more than one platform. If your boss doesn’t “get” twitter, stop pushing it. Introduce another platform and encourage participation there. This illustrates your social media savvy, flexibility and commitment to moving the organization into the current century.

Explain what it means to be “brandjacked.” One of the first things I say before giving a presentation is this: “If you don’t manage your online reputation, Google will manage it for you.” But that’s not the worst that could happen. Think identity theft times ten. This will surely get their attention.

Have a proposal ready. If you work for a company where every decision has to be made by committee, and only after a series of at least three meetings, you should try speaking their language. Once you are able to garner interest it’s important to be ready to present the benefits in a way the higher-ups will understand. So put a proposal together. Include a chart or two. Just make sure your message is clear.

Ask for forgiveness, not permission. (This one is only for the risky, who feel relatively good about their job security and have a decent relationship with the powers-that-be.) Sometimes you simply have to act and let the chips fall where they may. Consider starting a personal blog with a disclaimer indicating that it’s your work, not your company’s. Start twittering about non-proprietary information. Build a following and then show the results. If you can start something worthwhile, perhaps they’ll let you keep it up and hopefully build even more.

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This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
Feel free to challenge me, disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely nuts in the comments section of each blog entry.

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5 comments

I would be wary of focusing solely on the negatives for participating in social media.

I think it’s also important to have some great case studies from relevant industries, do some twitter searches for your industry’s subject matter and demonstrate how easy it is to reach so many poeple.